


Finding Home

by authorwithoutaquill



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Castle, F/M, Gen, Rumbelle - Freeform, enchanted forest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-20 12:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4786718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authorwithoutaquill/pseuds/authorwithoutaquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place straight after Belle is taken to the Dark Castle. Her first day at Rumplestiltskin's home isn't as bad as she expected it to be. She also learns that her Father's words about the imp were not true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Your Room

**Author's Note:**

> I own only my mistakes. I do not have a beta, but hopefully I avoided including too many of them. Feel free to point out if you find one, however, I always appreciate constructive feedback. 
> 
> Comments and kudos make my day and even just a simple "thank you" or "great work" means a lot.

Her first thought was that she shouldn’t have agreed to the deal. It was obvious that her stay at the Dark One’s castle wouldn’t be pleasant from the moment they came up to the tower and he locked the door in her face. No amount of shouting would bring him back, and Belle was just realizing what exactly she’d gotten herself into. Or what kind of man she was dealing with. If he was a man at all…

Her Father had called him a Beast, but Belle refused to believe that. She had enough trouble imagining what her life would be like, spending its entirety cleaning Rumplestiltskin’s castle. She didn’t dare entertain the thought that he might not even be human. He had to be. A funny skin didn’t make you a monster.

For the present, her captor seemed to be content with letting her stay in “her room” while he was attending to god knows what business. She only hoped it was saving her village and not giggling madly in the dining hall and spinning straw into gold. Despite her worry about her people and her uncertainty about her own fate, she fell asleep fairly quickly.

Next morning she awoke to the sound of the imp’s voice, “Well, dearie, now that I have taken care of your little problem, it’s time for you to hold up your end of the deal.” He spun around and left the room before Belle could say a word. Her back complained loudly as she stretched, trying to ease some life back into her stiff joints. She stumbled out of the room clumsily; her hands and feet were numb from the cold and her whole body ached from the night spent on the stiff wooden bench that served as her bed. Rumplestiltskin was already out of sight and probably at the foot of the stairs. He didn’t even look back to see if she was following. ‘Must be really used to people doing whatever he says,’ Belle thought unpleasantly.

“Hurry up, girl! I don’t have all day to wait for your feet to wake up!”

She ran the rest of the way as fast as she could in her golden ball gown and high-heeled shoes. When she finally made it downstairs she found a scowling Rumplestiltskin at the foot of it. She mumbled an apology while thinking furiously that he could have just given her more practical clothing and then maybe she could come down the stairs.

  *****

The morning was spent running after the infuriating imp, trying to keep up as he strode through the rooms, showing her all the cleaning supplies and occasionally barking out instructions about what she was and wasn’t allowed to touch. They’ve seemed to have gone through at least a hundred rooms by midmorning: ones with mirrors all covered up in dark cloths, ones with crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, a red circular one that had no doors, but its windows showed glowing objects in thick glass cases, and a chamber that was perfectly dark and no sound could be heard inside it, not even of their footsteps’.

“How’s it possible that your castle is so big on the inside, yet seems smaller than my Father’s from the outside?”

“And here I was thinking you weren’t stupid,” he snorted.

Belle of course knew the answer to her questions was magic, but she hoped that her companion might reveal something about her new home. No such luck, it seemed.

As if he’d read her mind, he chuckled, “You won’t find it that easy to catch the Dark One off guard, dearie. Perhaps you should give up trying at all.”

When his maid didn’t follow him immediately Rumplestiltskin stopped. There was a strange expression on her face as she asked, “Can you read minds?”

The maid was clearly caught off guard and Rumplestiltskin let out a loud giggle at the thought of finally being able to scare her into humility. The girl seemed unnerved by the sound and he broke into a grin. Yesterday he wasn’t convinced that the maid feared him when they came back to his castle, and the realization was quite unsettling. So even though he had a room ready for her, he acted on impulse and chose to lock her into the North Tower instead. It was windy and cold and had nothing in it except for damp hay and a bare wooden bench.

And yet, to his annoyance, there she was this morning, sleeping on soundly as if she were home, no trace of tears on her face. He wanted to scare her into wakefulness, but as he placed his hand on the door ready to slam it shut, the maid turned her head slightly in his direction, smiled a dimpled smile and shivered. For some reason his hand slipped from the doorframe and he simply spoke instead. The usual sharpness was missing from his voice and the girl didn’t even flinch as she got up. He turned around and hurried down the stairs to cover his blunder, but when the girl didn’t follow immediately he grew truly frustrated. He was the Dark One and this… this… slip of a girl was behaving as if he was just some mere mortal who was to be endured until she could rid herself of his company. He swore he could see her roll her eyes as she came down the stairs this morning.

“The Dark One is the greatest sorcerer in the world. Everybody know that! There are many, many things I can do, dearie, and looking into places others never wander is just one of them.” He gave a theatrical bow at the end of his speech for extra measure. He of course couldn’t read the girl’s mind; that was beyond the abilities of even the Sorcerer, whoever the wretched bastard may be… He was his only competition, but even He couldn’t see into the churning mess of people’s brain. The maid wouldn’t know that. And he wasn’t really lying: he could see things no one else could, including glimpses of the future.

To his dismay, the maid only raised an eyebrow and asked innocently, “So, you can tell what I’m thinking now?”

The imp’s hands flailed about aimlessly for a moment, his mouth half-open as he tried to come up with a retort before he recovered himself.

“That’s what mind reading is, you silly maid! However, your trivial little daydreams do not interest me enough to make an effort. I have neither the time, nor the temper to follow little girl’s thoughts fluttering about in their empty little heads.” He made a half gesture with his left hand and cut off the maid when she opened her mouth to retort, “You are dismissed! I expect you to serve tea at five sharp! Now off with you!”

As Rumplestiltskin turned around and poofed to his spinning wheel he didn’t notice Belle’s smile. And just as his last thought was: ‘What an insolent maid!’, before the golden thread started pooling at his feet, so Belle’s was: ‘He is a man after all.’


	2. Tea Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Tea Times were the focal point of their time together, Belle often had to spend them alone. Except for one time when Rumplestiltskin surprised her and ended it with some custard pudding on his head...

Belle’s first week consisted of cleaning the dining room, the ballroom, the South Tower, and the empty bedrooms on the second floor. She barely saw Rumplestiltskin during that first few days. She managed to drop a cup on her first day, successfully chipping it, but the imp let it slip, despite his insistence that she should handle everything with the outmost care, or else. She was relieved beyond words that her blunder went unpunished, but was slightly worried that the repercussions of her action were merely late, rather than non-existent. She grew especially worried when he didn’t show up for tea on her fourth day.

At first she didn’t quite know what to do, but after an hour of waiting and still no Dark One in sight, she left the room with a sigh, leaving cold tea on the table. The tray disappeared by the next afternoon, but Rumplestiltskin was still nowhere to be seen. The ritual repeated itself for the week after that and Belle started to think her fate would be to spend her entire life alone, when the imp appeared out of thin air in front of the long dining table. Belle shrieked and threw the tea tray at him, landing a custard pudding on Rumplestiltskin’s head. The Dark One froze, then cursed in a thick accent not very different from the people of the Frontlands. He spun on her, his face contorted into an expression of outmost rage, then clicked his fingers.

Belle found herself in a very untidy, badly lit room that was full of dirty dishes and cutlery stacked on top of each other, some of them reaching ceiling-height. She could see no doors or windows, but her cleaning supplies appeared next to her a moment later.

“You can’t just lock me in here!”

“Well, what am I supposed to do then, scrub the whole place clean before you let me out?”

Silence. Only this time it seemed affirmative, rather than sullen.

“This is ridiculous! You’ll have to let me out at some point. Or shall I starve to death for committing a stupid mistake?”

The quiet seemed to be mocking her.

“Alright, you insufferable man, I’ll play your game for now, but you let me out tomorrow. Do you hear me?”

She tried to sound defiant, brave, even, but knew that she had failed miserably. She was just a scared little girl, too far away from home, forced to obey the Dark One’s whim. Belle felt the tears burning her eyes. No, she shall not cry. Rumplestiltskin was not a monster - maybe he was moody, and bad-tempered and sudden, but he was just a man, she reminded herself. A man with more power than anyone in the realms should be able to possess. She shuddered, and asked out loud in an uncertain voice, “You wouldn’t really lock me in here, would you?”

When the silence stretched, but nothing changed she decided it was no use speaking to the air. Rumplestiltskin wouldn’t answer, and she was tired of hearing her own voice in the darkness of what she presumed must have been the kitchens. She picked up a broom and commenced her cleaning.

Half an hour later and still sulking, she muttered darkly, “Not that I have any choice, mind…”

The last word barely left her lips when a door opened on her right. A door, Belle was pretty certain wasn’t there before. It was built from solid wood, with no knob, but an inscription was scribbled over it: _Everyone has a choice._

“Well, that was clever of you! There’s no knob.”

She put the broom down though and started walking towards the door, despite herself. She stopped in front of it, examining its delicate surface with an unsure hand, before slightly pushing on the door. She was almost sure of what lay behind it. Freedom. And she was just as sure of the reason the door appeared in the first place. It was a test.

Pushing harder now, she succeeded in opening it. The door opened wide and revealed a beautiful vale, lying smugly in the embrace of the tall mountains that surrounded the castle. Green hills and a sea of flowers called to her like a song. If she shut her eyes halfway and tilted her head to the right, she could almost see Avonlea in the distance. And was that her Father’s castle?

Before she could stop herself she took two steps and was ready to walk outside. She gazed longingly towards the distant mountains and the setting sun, heart aching, tears burning her eyes, a desire to flee pounding at the back of her head. Then she turned around, shut the door and picked up her broom again.

“I do not break my promises, Rumplestiltskin. I swore to come with you forever and I shall keep that promise.”

She brushed a tear aside and sniffed, clutching the broom a little harder. “I don’t know why I’m here yet, but I believe I have a purpose. I believe you brought me here for more than just cleaning this old palace and I will not rest until I find out what that reason was. I’m not going anywhere.”

 *****

The Dark One was watching her through a crystal ball. At her last words he bent his head and threw the ball at the wall. It shattered with an ear-splitting crack, but Rumplestiltskin didn’t care. For the first time in roughly three hundred years, he felt confused. He held all the cards, he set the table, he made up the rules yet for some reason he wasn’t winning. And it was becoming clearer and clearer that he could not win, no matter how hard he tried. Not with that infuriating little maid. And yet he didn’t quite lose either. The girl stayed. She had the chance to leave and yet she chose not to. The imp couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or not. Hence the broken crystal ball.

For the very first time in his long life, he didn’t know what he wanted. The only problem with that observation was that he couldn’t plan for it. He couldn’t make up riddles, enchant objects and outsmart opponents if he didn’t know where he was going. And with this girl… Belle, it was high time he started using her name… With Belle he had absolutely no idea where he was going…

Rumplestiltskin, famed for his deals and contracts that always left the other party for the worse, seemed to have overstepped his mark. He lost out on one of his deals, and all because of that slip of a girl working in his kitchens downstairs. Of all people in the Enchanted Forest to get the best of him, the only one he didn’t expect was his nosy maid. Or didn’t he? Massaging his forehead, trying to make the sharp headache he got in the last half an hour go away, he got up slowly and looked around the room. He was supposed to be completing a Metamorphosis Spell for Rothbart. Something about swans - why was everyone so obsessed with birds these days? And yet, there he was, spying on her maid through a crystal ball instead.

“Oh, dearie me…” he muttered under his breath as he walked down the stairs leading to the dining room. Perhaps a little spinning would clear his mind for the evening. Belle would be fine cleaning the kitchens, it wasn’t particularly cold, he made sure of that. There was also a little cot standing by the fireplace, she would notice. He was free to try and calm his soul down in peace for tonight. And tomorrow…

Well, tomorrow he would join his little maid for tea. That would be his first step. He immediately chastised himself and put an end to his traitorous thoughts by sitting down at the wheel and beginning to turn it slowly.

*****

Rumplestiltskin’s decision about tea would have likely changed had he heard Belle’s last words. As it was, the crystal ball broke just in time and he was oblivious to what his maid was up to at present.

She was standing in the middle of the rather kitchen, covered in grime and dust, cheeks red and hair wild around her face. She cleaned as fast as she could for the past few hours, scrubbed every dish she could find, swept every inch of the floor, cleaned out every cupboard, and tried desperately not to think. But now, with the kitchen looking as presentable as it could without Rumplestiltskin’s help with moving the furniture, she could not mute the little voice that was whispering at the back of her mind. Not anymore. She walked to the cot beside the fireplace and sat down, smiling sadly to herself. Talking to no one in particular, she whispered, her voice barely cracking, “Not that I really had a choice, mind. That door was never leading me out of the castle…”

She thought she heard glass shattering above her head somewhere in the castle when she started cleaning again and wondered what it could be. Rumplestiltskin wasn’t a clumsy man. Although she could most certainly imagine him breaking things on purpose. Maybe he was still angry. Maybe he broke something just so she could have more to clean later… Forever was a very long time indeed. Belle just wished it wouldn’t grow longer with every day she’d spent in the Dark One’s castle.


End file.
